Ángeles Durán: “Alone Women Do Not Have Strength, But at a Conference We Do”

Recently granted the National Sociology and Political Science Award 2018, Ángeles Durán will be one of the speakers at the Santander WomenNOW Summit. With a PhD in Political Sciences, Durán is also honorary president of the UNESCO Chair at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and she is leading the WomenNOW observatory.

An expert in analysing unpaid work and its relation to the social and economic structure, an area often associated with women, she assures that “very important developments have been made in the world of work. The work in poor conditions undertaken by women has reduced and the development in technology has contributed to reduce the physical difficulty of our work”.

Durán is a defender of educational institutions which she considers a “hotbed of new ideas and a permanent trial of new organisational formulas” In this search for new ideas she also highlights the importance of conferences. With regard to the Santander WomenNow Summit, the international forum that will be held in Madrid on 28, 29 and 30 March, she believes that events like this “are essential. Individually women do not have the strength, but if they come together at a conference they can express their thoughts, find partnerships with other women and take group actions”.

When Ángeles Durán was asked about society’s evolution in recent years, she remembered one of the contradictions she had to experience and that fortunately do not exist now.“For example, being a student at the School of Law, and because I’m a women, I couldn’t be a forensic judge; I couldn’t open a current account on my own eitheror request a loan if I wasn’t accompanied by my husband”.